


Happy Endings

by flybynight



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-25
Updated: 2014-08-25
Packaged: 2018-02-14 16:27:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2198751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flybynight/pseuds/flybynight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Musings on love and happiness. Arthur writes from experience.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Happy Endings

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: I have just been in the sappiest mood lately, I can't figure out why, but somehow it gets me to write, so I shall not complain, haha. Warnings for sap and almost but not quite suggestive themes. Nothing happens. lol I'll get around to writing plot sooner or later-- I say that a lot, don't I?
> 
> Also, apologies for any errors, I'll have to comb through this about 500 more times later...

"Arthur, I don't get it."

My fingers stilled atop the keyboard I'd been abusing for the better part of six hours that day, not even quite up to par with my usual workload, but today happened to be part of my long desired summer vacation, and I technically shouldn't have been in my study at all. A fruitless endeavor really, and one of the reasons my lover was with me in the room, sitting on the sofa surrounded by several worn manuscripts to keep his pouting at bay since we were not poolside or barbecuing or even rolling between the sheets as he had planned for us to do. Not stuck in a room with a faulty air conditioner that didn't do very much with the sweltering heat except push it around.

_Tomorrow, darling, I promise. I'll start tomorrow._

I'd said those words one too many times today already yet, but I had it in mind to keep my promise. I would. But when inspiration struck, it was always best to get down my thoughts when I could. It was unfortunate that I no longer carried around a pad and pen everywhere with me like I had in my university days. Now I was a slave to my laptop, sitting in one part of the house one moment and then flying up the stairs to my work haven the very next to bring my thoughts to life.

A common occurrence, and sadly, there was nothing to be done for it. Alfred, my darling, my own special sort of muse and inspiration, knew that better than anyone.

"Don't get what," I finally responded, reaching for the glass of iced tea that couldn't quite qualify as 'iced' any longer, a watered down mess that was still cool enough to soothe my throat, but I still grimaced afterwards and pushed it aside.

"These stories. They're all the same."

Alfred actually sounded quite put out. I chuckled and turned in my chair to glance at him. Seeing him with his long legs pulled up to his chest, in shorts and a t-shirt, poring over pages and pages when I could not even get him to pick up a book on any other day, was amusing as it was attractive. My ego knew why that was.

"You'll recall me mentioning that these were never published, and with good reason."

"No, no, it's not that..."

He had his chin in his hand and his brow was furrowed. I looked back at the large smattering of words against white background on the laptop screen and decided I was finished for now (' _no, Arthur, for the rest of the week. You promised, didn't you?_ '), Alfred was far more interesting, and I stood up, pulling at my own t-shirt and fruitlessly fanning myself with it. I crossed the room in a few steps to sit down beside him, reaching out to smooth the crease across his damp forehead.

He looked up. "I didn't mean it like that. These are good. Really good! I mean, you know I'm not all that picky about what I read, but even I know when something is quality, so--"

"You needn't flatter me," I said with a smirk, and finally he stopped looking so thoughtful to crack a grin of his own, one of his lovely ones that I never realized I always missed until I hadn't seen it for a few hours. Or a few minutes. "They're all rubbish, I know it. That's why they've never left this office."

Alfred wasn't much of a reader, though I didn't fault him for it, and I certainly didn't force him to read anything I'd written (besides the fact I was worried he'd say something like  _'it needs more explosions'_  or something equally idiotic). Having worked in publishing before I'd even deigned to put any of my own work up for scrutiny, I knew what it was like to be forced to read something you didn't want to, that was for certain. But Alfred had insisted today, and it had been hard to refuse his desire to want to spend time together and at the same time learn something new about me.

"They're not 'rubbish'," he said after another moment, fingers running along the edges of the pages. "I can totally hear your voice in my head when I read it though, haha. These were all totally made to be audio books read by stuffy English dudes."

When I rolled my eyes, he laughed, nudging my hip with a bare foot. "But seriously-- What I meant was, like, the themes and stuff are all pretty similar."

"Go on," I said, indulging myself as I ran a hand up his leg. He didn't look at me.

"Well like, all the characters are so..."

"So?"

"Depressing!"

It was my turn to laugh. I peered at him from over his knees as I kissed them, giving him a look. "You really think so?"

I didn't miss the way his cheeks went a little pink, distracted, but he soldiered on like a good lad. "I do, dude, I mean... Like I guess it's supposed to be realistic, but all of the characters just have these terrible lives and all these really bad things happen, and even when something good happens, it's always bittersweet."

"Some would say that makes for good drama, darling. At least, that had been my intention once upon a time."

Realistic, I'd told myself a long time ago. What I wrote now was not vastly different, but it was certainly more on par with realism than the tawdry nonsense Alfred was holding in his hands at that moment. The words of a desperate young writer who wrote from the heart, and back then, what need was there for anything else?

I still decided to play Devil's advocate however, raising an eyebrow at the skeptical look on his face. "Besides, isn't that just real life? Nothing is ever perfect."

But that was hard to say to someone who'd grown up watching Disney films and lived and breathed and oozed Hollywood from his pores. Alfred was a young actor, it was how I met him. All blond hair and blue eyed idealism at his finest. He was of a world where the light always conquered the darkness, the villain always had a weakness, and the hero always won the girl in the end.

"It doesn't have to be perfect. But y'know, good stuff happens sometimes too," he replied.

"I know," I finally agreed magnanimously, easing myself between his legs and letting my fingers play beneath his shirt, idly tickling the skin underneath. "I know that well."

Alfred's breath hitched as he peered down at me, and I pretended not to notice, instead waiting for more of his commentary. The papers rustled as he tossed them to the floor and made a grab for me, both of us laughing as he pulled me up to his chest and kissed me, a little more playfully than perhaps I would have liked, but wonderful all the same.

"You're sweaty," I mumbled after.

"So are you."

It seemed the heat had melted our brains to a point where stating the obvious was about all we could do. Like how one thinks and feels after a spectacular round of shagging. Been there, done that. And if things continued the way they were going, I'd have it again.

"I'm sorry you don't approve of my earlier work," I whispered against his mouth, leaning in to bring us closer and taste him again, but he stopped sharply, pulling back. I frowned ever so slightly and tried to chase after him, but he laughed and put a hand up over my lips.

"You're totally missing the point, Arthur!"

I glowered at him from over his hand, silently demanding an explanation. Not so much about what he meant, but about why he was denying me.

"I said, it's not the work itself that's bad. I know you can be kind of a cynical bastard sometimes, but a lot of these... I just don't get why all of them have to have conflict. No one's ever just... normal."

"Normal doesn't sell books," I said from between his fingers, though considering these were never sold to begin with, that point was rather moot.

"Okay, not normal. That's not the right word, but-- Arthur, none of these have happy endings. Not one of them. What do you have against your characters being happy? Is that really how you saw the world?"

He pulled his hand away as if he really expected me to answer him seriously. I started to smile, to laugh him off, but his unwavering blue stare caught me, and I swallowed around my dry throat and looked away in thought. There really wasn't an answer beyond wanting to convey the things life had taught me, and certainly events at the time I'd written them had lent themselves to shaping my worldview, for better or worse. Mostly for worse, perhaps, though who had time for regrets?

Alfred was patient for once in his life, and I wasn't sure if I was thankful for the time he was giving me or not. He lay there, arms wrapped around me loosely, our bodies warm and sticky and our breath a little too warm, but the closeness was nice. Comfortable. When his hand moved against my back, I finally raised my eyes to meet his.

"Perhaps... I didn't know what happiness was yet."

"What?" 

"I said," I leaned forward, pressing our foreheads together and running my finger down his cheek, "that perhaps I didn't know what happiness was. We're not perfect either, Alfred. And yet... I am happy. Perhaps I'd never known what it truly was, until I met you." 

It was quite a glorious thing, something that I would someday write and devote entire tomes to perhaps, to just the lovely shade of red I could inspire to appear on Alfred's face when he least expected it. Normally I was on the other end of such things, but when he was truly caught off guard, young,  _shameless_ , and free as he was, there was nothing more endearing in all the world-- that look of wonder. 

"That wasn't even fair, Arthur," he said, no, almost gasped, suddenly short of breath. It made my smile curl ever upwards. "And I think maybe the heat's getting to you."

His response was a little less clever than usual, more often than not I'd be expecting ' _where'd you get that one from, off the back of a cereal box?'_ , but I wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. A speechless Alfred was just as precious.

"The heat, or something else? Only you can make me say such daft things." 

"I really am that special, huh?" 

I kissed the stupid, cocky smile off of his face-- that innocent wonder never lasted, my love was much too ridiculous to be humbled for long --and we listened to the quiet hum of summer in that cramped little room for a little while longer.

Perhaps I had only needed to find my own happy ending before I could write one believably. 


End file.
